Fox’s ‘Grease’ to star Vanessa Hudgens, Julianne Hough

Fox has found some intriguing stars for its live Grease primetime musical. Fox revealed the stars of “Scream Queens,” its new comedy-horror anthology series: “Glee” star Lea Michele, Joe Manganiello (“True Blood,” “Magic Mike XXL”), Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) and Keke Palmer (“Akeela and the Bee,” “Masters of Sex”).The broadcaster wants to ‘re-imagine the hit crossover musical for an entirely new generation’, with Julianne Hough playing the role of Sandy, made famous by Olivia Newton-John.French President Francois Hollande defended the most recent Charlie Hebdo cover, which featured a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad and sparked violent protests abroad, Reuters reports. “We’ve supported these countries in the fight against terrorism,” Hollande said on Saturday. “I still want to express my solidarity, but at the same time, France has principles and values, in particular freedom of expression.” The satirical French magazine’s most recent cover was its first since two gunmen attacked the publication’s offices and murdered 12 people.

There may be at least two undiscovered, Earth-sized planets lurking within our solar system, researchers say in two new papers published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters. Julianne Hough (Dancing with the Stars, Rock of Ages) will star as summer lover Sandy Olsson and Hudgens (High School Musical, Spring Breakers) has been cast as her scene-stealing bad-girl friend Rizzo. The series hails from Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, Ian Brennan and Dante Di Loreto, the executive producers of “Glee” and “American Horror Story.” Jamie Lee Curtis (“Halloween”) and Emma Roberts (“American Horror Story: Freak Show”) were previously announced in starring roles in the limited series.

Julianne said of her casting: ‘Grease is one of the movies that made me want to be an entertainer, and I have literally been waiting my whole life to play Sandy. ‘She is such an iconic character that continues to transcend generations. Scientists analyzing a set of “extreme trans-Neptunian objects” found that the elliptical paths of the 13 bodies they analyzed had “unexpected orbital parameters.” The team suggests that the discrepancies are the result of “other unknown planets…altering the distribution of the orbital elements.” Such unknown planets — dubbed “Planet X” and now “Planet Y” — would most likely exist beyond Neptune and Pluto, Space.com reports. Fox has ordered fifteen one-hour episodes of the series, which is scheduled to begin production in the spring and will premiere next fall. “Scream Queens” is produced by 20th Century Fox Television in association with Ryan Murphy Television. Lead author of the recent study Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, of the Complutense University of Madrid, agreed that alternate theories must be considered, but that “if (our study) is confirmed, our results may be truly revolutionary for astronomy.” I’m going to be a Pink Lady!” The event will mark Fox’s entry into the primetime event musical game following on NBC’s hugely successful The Sound of Music Live in 2013 and last December’s rather disappointing Peter Pan.

Since 1978’s Grease is a more contemporary title than either of NBC’s shows, plus has a high-school setting and popular songbook, Fox is well positioned to draw a big audience.